Land and Garden Preserve
Unknown Studio Selected to Lead Planning for the Land & Garden Preserve on Mount Desert Island
The Land & Garden Preserve has selected Unknown Studio to develop a comprehensive plan to guide the future operations and stewardship of the cherished lands and gardens on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Mount Desert and its spectacular landscapes are considered a cradle of inventive thought around stewardship, conservation, public lands, recreation, ecology, garden design, and landscape architecture.
The Preserve’s mission is to share the beauty of the historic lands and gardens on Mount Desert Island, including the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, Asticou Azalea Garden, Thuya Garden, and over 1,200 acres of managed forests and wetlands around Little Long Pond and in Seal Harbor. The Preserve stretches from the waters of the Gulf of Maine northwards to the peaks of Barr Hill, Eliot Mountain, and Acadia National Park. Along the coast, the Preserve bridges nearly six miles from Northeast Harbor in the west to Hunters Cliffs in the east. The need for the planning project arose from the recent expansion in acreage and infrastructure when the management of the three gardens and natural lands were combined under the umbrella of the Preserve in 2015.
Unknown Studio has brought together a team with expertise ranging from Indigenous Placemaking to Preservation Architecture to Conservation Ecology:
Beyer Blinder Belle, a New York-based architecture firm with vast experience in historic preservation and facilities planning and New York-based SiteWorks, leading operations and maintenance planning, phasing, and prioritization.
The engineering team includes: The James W. Sewall Company from Old Town, Maine responsible for site, civil and transportation engineering; SMRT Architects and Engineers out of Portland, Maine responsible for the MEP and structural engineering; Moffatt & Nichol, an international maritime engineering firm, responsible for the maritime planning and coastal resilience aspects of the project; and Faithful & Gould for cost estimation of resulting plans.
The team also includes select, expert advisors: Malcolm Hunter, PhD, Professor of Conservation Biology, University of Maine; Stephen Ressel, PhD, Professor of Biology, College of the Atlantic; Glen Mittelhauser, Ecologist, Maine Natural History Observatory; Jill Weber, Botanist, College of the Atlantic; Geo Soctomah Neptune, Artist, Historian, and Indigenous Placemaking Advisor; Chris Newell, Executive Director of the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, and Senior Partner to Wabanaki Nations; and Christian Barter, Poet Laureate of Acadia National Park and Acadia National Park Trail Crew Supervisor. Beyond the Maine-based expert advisors, Thaïsa Way, PhD, Resident Program Director for Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC will serve as an historic advisor to the team.
For more information about the Preserve, please visit gardenpreserve.org
